Closet lesbian and awkward boyfriend

Closet lesbian and awkward boyfriend

bedroom teachers for morning lovers

backyard blues on the random days

magic markers and vineyard thinkers

coffee shop homosexual discussions

shirtless summer, under-over, rediscover

Aimless greyhound wanderings

Ageless, wonderless, backwardness

Nameless, ghostless, spiritless, religion

Godless, wonderful universe of despair

Hourless, timeless clock for hobos on codeine and heroine

I don't do drugs screamed the poet

I don't smoke pot yelled the politician

I don't fuck innocent jerks intoned the judge

I don't believe in justice whispered the prisoner

I don't live lies managed to write the circus clown

I am not here to sing sang the singer

Wine induced spirit quest

Follow the leader into the forest

horses horses horses

Country car ride America

Makes no sense, makes no sense, makes no sense

Hollow shell of a man

Hollow speech of a life

bound to disappear

Blockbuster movie

instant happy, coffee happy, caffeine happy, happy happy

Marked man like batman, superman, and wonderwoman

Quintet composed of coltran, dylan, mega man, me and pac man

Mid-90s sad grunge rock and contemporary hip-hop

Track listings of a cassette tape passed from upper brother Dave

Colorful vista of foreign media

Chinese rockabilly of impossibility

French-Man in English-land conquered from Indian

Last scream of hollowed empty man

L'Acadie des highway pis d'la ville

Ju tanné des villages pis d'la mer.
La Péninsule c'est vidée 
Le monde rêve de bateau et d'étoile éloignée
Parle de pêche et de poisson pogné
Garç de bois, fille de cabane
De ch'min de terre à ch'min de fer.
Un ch'min fort qui est fière

Le sud s'est remplie
Dieppe, L'Acadie des banlieues.
Conduire sur la transcanadienne de Moncton à Montréal
Le Plateau, étoile de l'Acadie.
Les Leblancs d'Ottawa
Les Thériault d'Toronto
Le pêcheur urbain
Le fermiers des jardins
L'explorateurs des quartiers
Le hippie du marchés

La déportations c'est fini
Construction réussi
Wkyscrapers Acadien
Les Anglais, mes voisins
Su les swamps du coude
Ont s'est toutes réunis

Ju tanné des gossips de village
des histoires de marriages
des lendemains de veilles magané
les voisins étonnées
les cheveux perms tout curler
La Sagouine est passé
dépasser, expiré

Mon Acadie, la rivière
Mud river, ville de bière
ville de nuit, ville de rêve
ville de grunge, ville de gay
ville de punk, ville d'été
ville maison, ville highway

An ode to everything

An ode to everything, for everything is, in the darkest of times, no never alone, only yourself and everything else, the most that there ever was, the most that there is,the most that there will, the most of my will. Alll of myself, verses for everything, for life is a fight, a fight we can't win, a fight to remember, a life celebration, a fight of lovers that are lovers forever, a love for the spirit, the spirit of all, and the spirits that were and the spirits that will be. An ode to myself, since I am a part, I may not have begotten, what I have got, but I am myself and all that is not, I am myself, the parts and the parcels. An ode to Scotland, the scotch and the whisky, the wines, and the beer and the spirit. An ode, oh, my friends, an ode to distance, the internet, cheese and baklava and bread. An ode to singing, at night, in the dark, naked and listening to Beethoven that's all. The beetles and Buddha, Muhammad, Obama, Confucius and Snoopy, an ode to them all. The suns and the guns, my cloths and my cock, for coffee and cola, for the love of it all. An ode to Jesus, which repeats after all, for thousands of years, the best god of all. Explosions Hazaah, the great sextasy, and the lesser pleasures, like shitting and pee. An ode to it all, the majestic feelings, the deepest sorrows, of cats and of dogs, of horses and boars, dejection and more and more and more, ad infinitum.

Hello!!

My stuff keeps getting hacked. Fuck the Internet.

I Am Not One of Don Cherry’s Good Old Canadian Boys

I have nothing against Don Cherry’s good old Canadian boys, but they are not like me. Most of them grew up on farms in Northern Ontario or the prairies. Don Cherry’s good old Canadian boys like fighting and drinking. They have a strong sense of belonging to a group. They like the military and could have worked in construction. They are never Asian, Black or Latino. Don Cherry’s good old Canadian boys are probably pretty good people, and I admire how they are good hockey players willing to dedicate themselves completely to the group, but they are not like me. I never liked Gilmour or Clark, my favourites are Kovalev and Subban, players who play with style and skills, rather than grit and determination. I think that Europeans have a lot of qualities that are worth emulating and we should look towards them for guidance, at least as much as we look at Americans. I don’t think that Russians lack heart or passion, or anything else for that matter. And the French are my cousins, even if they are arrogant, they are family. Don Cherry’s good old Canadian boys are rarely from Quebec, although I once spent some time with dairy farmers in Coaticook, Quebec. People there were fatter than me, they wore “casquettes” at the rinks, they ate poutine and played hockey. I think Don Cherry would have liked them, they were simple people, good people, but they were different from me. As a kid, I wanted to play hockey. I was a Canadian boy, but I wasn’t good. I didn’t like to wake up early to go to games and practices. The game bored me very quickly and I didn’t like to put on so much equipment to play a few minutes per period. I didn’t feel comfortable in the arena. My parents were hippies and I think they were glad I didn’t like it. They also thought hockey was expensive and neither of them liked it. Don Cherry’s good old Canadian Boys’ parents will go to great lengths to help their kids play hockey, my parents paid for my university. Good old Canadian boys do not like downtown Montreal and Toronto. Places where people have holes in their skin from various piercings, they do not like the gay village and they do not like colourful turbans and funny accents. Most of my friends have funny accents and, in truth, I probably have one too. Good old Canadian boys work with their hands, and I work with my mind. I would rather outsmart or charm an enemy, than beat him to a pulp I do not think Don Cherry is a great Canadian, and I think he should stop talking about women, because when he does it, it’s bad for the country. I do not like Don Cherry. I don’t like how he thinks that violence is a means to an end. I don’t like his blind support for the troops, regardless of their use or actions. And I don’t like how he has become a hero to our nation, a nation that has become so engrossed in claiming it’s greatness, that it has forgotten how it has gotten there, and how to move forward toward progress. A nation that is so steeped in the comfort of home entertainment systems and backyard barbecues, that a clown can become a national hero. A nation who keeps voting for a government the objects to environmental law, a nation where the rights of some Canadians, are more important than those of others. I dislike Don Cherry, not for who he is, because I don’t know him personally, but for what he stands for, the unwillingness to change our habits and customs, both in hockey and in the nation that loves the game so much.

I have not hustled on this site for a while which is quite a shame. I will try to come back more often. I am now in Beijing where translate the bizarre world of Chinese state-owned enterprises into English. Lately I've been writing a poem for my company. I'll have to post that soon. For now, here are pictures of mountains around Beijing. This is Miaofeng Mountain.

Toronto is a wasteland

I spent most of my weekends two weeks ago taking pictures around town with my friend Lucy (who is actually called Zhangmanyun). It was a glorious time. I'd forgotten how I like taking pictures. I like how you can create a completely different reality out of a small piece of life. It just depends on the frame. I like to zoom in on things to make them appear as they are not.


I feel as though I am in an artistic renaissance after going through the dark ages. I've really found my beat as a part-time artist. I'm doing 1-2 painting a week, and getting some other things in there. This blog is also a nice outlet.

Anyway, Toronto is a nice subject for photography, it's vast and has a lot of diversity. It's the mix that is interesting, in terms of creating a mystique out of a small part of reality, there is quite a deal of reality in this down.

I can't stop listening to this song. I took two, by Daedalus. It's very genius. And it sort of reminds me of this song. They're the types of songs that make me want to go out and kick some ass. Become something more than myself. It's very hard to more than oneself. I'd say it happens only a few times a year. True moments of brilliance and genius.

Sometimes when I'm biking around the city I also feel like those songs. But I have to see it from a third person point of view. When I picture myself like that I think that it's like a drum n bass video. Especially in the city, with all these strangers around me.

Strangers are a bit odd and remind me of alienation. Now I feel that my life is like a movie. I think that is it for now.

Having had a glorious summer of procrastinating on writing my memoir for way too long, getting maried, going to visit my mother in Africa and hanging out with my father, I logically ended up unemployed in Toronto this autumn. I could have gone anywhere else, but I must have felt as though I had some unfinished business here because I came right back.



At first, I wasn't planning on coming to Toronto. I even passed through Toronto and met with some friends, being all smug and thinking that I would not be there for a good little while. Then I encountered the furry of American border agents who refused me entry to the United States. Border agents are a hard reminder of the often oppresive powers of the state. True impersonal bureaucrats imposing rules from above, use meak individuals can do nothing to counter their computer powered obstination at refusing or allowing us entry to their country. And so, in the face of assholes wearing blue suits, Native American cigarette smugglers start to appear as true anarchist heroes destroying borders one zodiac boat at a time. But I digress...

So it is that I came back to the glorious gray skyline of west Toronto where I seem to have acclimatised myself unwillingly. At first I was quite confident that I would find a job at a moments notice. I found an apartment in three days in a basement with no windows and a short ceiling that forces me to bend in two whenever I need to shower (usually once a day). My upstairs neighbour smokes joints like it's going out of fashion so that the apartment usually smells of a mix of dirty dishes and mariuana. I am forced to leave the house often and early, otherwise the lack of sunshine puts me in a stuppor forcing me to play videogames and fall asleep.

Oddly enough, I've been quite happy here. I have good friends who are similarly unemployed. And perhaps more importantly, I started painting again. The thing with being unemployed is that you get a whole lot of free time all of a sudden. This was refreshing at first, then, I started going insane. Logically I decided to start painting, but since I'm very ADD I also got a bunch of Star Trek Deep Space Nine episodes from my friend. This has caused me to paint gloriously colorful apartments while watching space opera in a gloomy basement. I've been very happy about all that.

Bla bla bla

J'ai une bonne amie de Beijing à Toronto avec qui je me tiens beaucoup. C'est rassurant avoir des amis chinois! Donc elle étudie avec moi et on parle de politique souvent. Je la trouve intéressante parce que je suis tellement différent d'elle. Sont père était prof, puis il a travaillé dans le gouvernement et semble avoir été asser bien placé. Ensuite il a quitté quand son boss c'est suicidé (une bataille politique avec Jing Zemin ou quelque chose comme ça) et il a été en dévelopment immobilier. De toute évidence sa famille a de l'argent, mais sa ne lui a pas monté a la tête et elle travaille fort.

Donc, on parlais d'abord de Taiwan. Nous avons souvent cette discussion. Elle est de l'avis que Taiwan devrait revenir a la Chine, elle parle de Hong Kong et de "1 pays deux systèmes" qui pourrais accomoder Taiwan. Moi je pense plutôt que c'est les Taiwanais qui devrait décidé. Elle n'est pas d'accord, une minorité ne peux pas décider contre le bien de la majorité. Puis moi je parle de Québec, comment il on eu le droit de vote et tout. Personne ne gagne, mais on apprend beaucoup.

Ensuite on mangeais et elle m'a surpris en disant qu'elle pourrais être une femme traditionelle, qui fais attention a son mari ne s'occupe pas trop de son emplois. Je suis toujous surpris d'entendre cela parce que je suis entouré de femme forte et un peu féministe. Mais je pense que en Asie c'est une idée bien répandue, je lui est raconté comment un ami un peu mysogyne en Chine pensais. Elle était d'accord et disais qu'elle pourrait très bien vivre comme ça. Moi ça me dérange.

Je pense que c'est drôle comment je peu comprendre les valeurs asiatique, les idées chinoise et tout, mais je ne peux pas les accepter, je ne viens pas du même endroit. Et c'est une discussion difficile a avoir parce que se n'est pas une discussion entre individus, mais une discussion entre deux société, qui existe à un niveau plus élevé. Nous n'avons pas les même connaissance et valeurs politique.

Monday in Toronto

I woke up slowly this morning, but I wanted to wake up fast anyway. I was a bit grumpy and felt bad, and then I was walking in the street that said "look good, feel amazing, be happy" or something like that. It was an advertising for something I don't know what. I took the advice and my day has been going great. Then later I saw a sign that said "stay cool and keep walking". There was a crazy guy, that was saying crazy shit and I just kept walking. I think it is good to just follow the advices of random signs. Like stop signs, always follow the advices of stop signs when you drive.

Weekend

I went to the Algonquin park this weekend. It is a really large park and I realized that the US has a lot more protected areas than Canada. We only protect like 7% of the country compared to like 25% in the US. Canada is such a bitch sometimes. This park was awesome though with lots of trees, rocks and lakes. True Canadian wildlife at its best. I even saw two moose. I went there with the Chinese student association of the University of Toronto. It was a bit odd because I was the only non-Chinese in the group of like 160 people. It is a bit odd how cut off from Canadian reality a lot of these students are. At the same time they are not quite your typical Chinese in the way that they are living in Canada. I think it was my first time really getting out of the city since I came back to Canada a month ago. The outdoors in this country is really similar everywhere you go and a lot of it reminded me of my youth. at the same time it is odd to rediscover your country with a group of foreigners. I think they have a different view of things. It is mostly focused on taking a lot of pictures. But that might have something to do with the nature of the trip. One day, a bus over a hundred people, 20 minute break everywhere we go, shoot a picture, go go go.

I had a good moment of epiphany sitting next to a lake with hundred of Chinese kids taking picture of each other. It was getting cold outside, this being October and all. I was looking at the sun and realized that it was cold because we are a tiny rock in the universe, and if the sun doesn't heat us enough we get cold. I felt small and I think that is good for me. It puts things in perspective. I am worthless, work hard, be strong, enjoy what you have. Is this a Chinese view of the world? Probably not.

Today I had a strange encounter on my way to school. I cut off a pedestrian on my bike by cutting a red light. I didn't think too much about it. Then this car drives next to me and he's like "hey why don't you respect the law, you almost hit that pedestrian" and I was like " no man, I just cut him off". Then he was like "bullshit!" and he drove off. I kind of respect that guy, and I guess he was right. I kept on biking and I was thinking about these cool answers I could have given him like "why are you driving your SUV? Cuse you are selfish and so am I, start biking and I'll respect the law" or "because I have a strange sense of entitlement about not being from Toronto. By burning the reds I am establishing my identity as an outsider". Anyway, I guess I will be more careful from now on. People in Toronto really respect the rules. As they say in China 入乡随俗 (enter the village, follow the rules) when in Rome do as the Romans do. Toronto is no Rome though... 
 

Biking

I was biking today and I saw the most intense thing. This guy passed me going crack cocaine fast. Crack cocaine fast is a demonic dangerous speed as opposed to just normal bike messenger or racer fast, the crack cocaine fast biker will tend to have a bad bike and horrible biking technique, his speed also seems to be unsustainable over a long period of time. So this guy passes me by and after like 5 seconds he slipped on the tramway rail and fell right on his side. His head sort of hit this car that was parked next to us. I immediately stopped to ask if everything was alright. He got up really fast and looking at me was like "Yeah, that was really intense. WOOH! That's a lot of adrenaline! YEAH!". He then jumped right back on to his bike and started going super fast again. I think after a while he realized he was hurt because I saw him get off his bike. Maybe he just arrived where he was going. It was really intense.

For a while Toronto was making me feel inadequate. I think it had to do with Rob Ford. He is this mayoral candidate that is leading the electoral race. I saw a video of him online where he was saying that bikes shouldn't be on the roads because roads are built to accommodate trucks, buses and cars. I was pretty insulted and I was seeing him everywhere. I thought that Toronto drivers were really rude to bikes and hated bikers because they wanted to vote for him. I think now I am feeling a bit better about it. I am getting used to the traffic here and I seem to get in a bit less trouble with the cars. I still jaybike a bit to much though. Them Torontonians don't even walk on the red, noneless bike.

I have been interacting with the city on my bike. Slowly discovering. It is nice and my superior speed and versatility make me feel superior to cars and pedestrians. I hope I won't have to walk this winter.

This Week's music

This week I am into the Polaris prize nominees, but only 3 of them really:

Last week's music

Last week I resumed my love affair with Youtube which had been put on hold due to China blocking the dam site. I got into old school hip hop mixed with new school beats from the Ninja tunes label. This was a good Youtube playlist:

Toronto is ROC

I've only lived in the Rest of Canada for 3 months in my life. I don't really consider New Brunswick to be Rest of Canada because I lived in a francophone community which was just not very Anglo Saxon in its outlook. My three months in the ROC were spent hitchhiking across Canada, living in lower East side Vancouver and working on a flower farm in the Yukon; not exactly the typical ROC experience I would say. Toronto is ROC, it is the center of the ROC experience and I would say it is pleasant enough. I would say that it is a good place because the WASP element is mixed in with the entire planet. So when I was walking in downtown Toronto and saw the bagpipe wearing skirt sporting Scotish guy, my attention was immediately diverted to the reggae Jamaican guy with dreads riding his bike and screaming sme non-sense "Babylon" or something. That is good. Toronto takes the British politeness, love of order, Victorian era prudishness, and Protestant work ethics, and uses it to build this multicultural hodgepodge of everything that is very interesting if you enjoy people and culture.

Now the critical theory, French nationalist in me screams " but it is all overpowered by Anglo culture and moors"! But I am left wondering. What is quite amazing in this city is how everyone seems to live together quite fine. I have only been here for a while, like a week really, but I think I get the point that nobody is going to look at you funny if you wear a turban and a dress, man kiss a man, or scream at people down the road in Chinese. Everything goes in a great mix of indifference and economic logic that is very refreshing when coming back from China. Even the whities are joining in and they have a bunch of urban tribes that can be visited as I travel across the city; from urban hip, to suburb clics and  banker money people. The WASPs gain from all this great food, cultural excitement and (I am sure) a self glorified sense of satisfaction at having arrived there first and therefore having in large part built the basis for this great experiment.

Obviously this is all fodder for the separatist because French in this metropolis becomes just another minority group. Well I say "to hell with that" because a federation should be able to house many different political and cultural systems under a state and Canada has obviously been pretty good at that. So for today and until I get pissed off, I lay glory upon you Toronto.   

Toroto Night

I met up with my friend Jon. He is a fluffy intellectual. Fluffy because of the curly afro he sports on his head. Intellectual because he is like woody Allen, but less funny, he is still pretty funny though.

We were at a bar and I commented on a man's beard, he had just bummed a smoke. He was a Geopolitics PhD at York. He seemed to be really into religion and academic theory. Critical theory more precisely. He lives in the ivory tower. We then proceeded to get drunk. After a while we left for another bar. The guy told me repeatedly I was a Marxist.Jon left, he was probably bored out of his mind that me and this guy had just been taking academics for the past 4 hours. Me and the beard try to get into another bar. I somehow got refused at the bar. I might have been a bit confrontational. I think maybe I refused to show my ID or at least made sarcastic remarks to the bouncer, its ironic because I had just befriended another bouncer at the other bar. This upset the bearded academic, "Can you get in the system? Can you?" he yelled at me. It was a bit odd and we parted. I got his phone number and promises we would play badminton. I am sceptic as to whether the number is real or not, don't really feel like trying it right now.

My head hurts. Maybe I will read Das Kapital today.

Leaving Shanghai

I am leaving Shanghai in a few days. Tomorrow actually, to go to Zhengzhou in Hebei province (I think) and then the third of September to  go to Toronto. I have been reflecting on my experience here for the past few months, working at the Expo for the Canada Pavilion. I guess what really stands out is the people I have been working with who are quite amazing. People are such a mixed bag, a fusion of everything we have been through in our life, and to work with such an interesting group in such a tight knit situation for the past few months has been amazing. I have had a pretty amazing life I think, It has been my luck in life (or blessing if you believe in those things). So it is amazing to find people who have had and continue to lead so interesting lives, people who think in a similar way, have the same ideas, and were willing to share them with me.

It was also an experience to see around 1-2 million people in such a short amount of time. They estimate that around 70 million people will be coming to Expo over six months. According to my rough estimate that is around 1/20th of China's population, twice that of Canada. It is all walks of life, all places, all ideas and the such, a great mixed bag. To have such a contact with a population in a country such as China is amazing. Especially in a time when China is becoming the richest most powerful place on earth. How do Chinese people think of the world in a time like this? Mostly they are pretty ignorant about the outside world, most people are still too poor to care, and those who do seem to have a  nationalistic fervour about them that is scary at times. Yet people with less stress, more education (money), and by extension more power in society seem to be quite friendly and open, which is a positive sign. I guess all we can do is wait and see, but as people turned out to come and see the world, they seemed to be envious of Canada and our way of life, which fits in with our own prejudices, but anyway.

On towards the rest of my life, but not without a bit of nostalgia. 

Why I Love America

America is just a dream, it does not actually exist. It is the hopes and imagination of each of us, it is the prettiest thing. There is no real America; even the real one is clothed in cyber-reality and entertainment television shows. Americans dream of capital gains and faraway vacations from their suburban homes. Yet America makes the prettiest dreams, of cowboys and endless landscapes; of rugged hills in the dry desert and beautiful forest with leaves that reflect the autumn colors.

America is New York with millions of people from all over the world running for business at a frenetic pace; Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Chinks and Indians all living side by side madly pursuing the unattainable, indefinable American dream; silver glittery rockets, million dollar cars in endless driveways, sexy babes at discos and poor to riches in a matter of days.

America, always more America, on the television it's talk shows and fake reality. On the radio all I hear is that sweet American music, of country alt-disco. In the subway people wear American Apparel and give me sweet looks of boredom. I fall asleep and see open fields with cowboys and Indians sitting on horses chasing each other. In the hallways of universities all I hear is American talk of science and technology, of arts and philosophy. In Chinese factories, or Russian gulags, people dream of American freedom, American riches, and the American life. Wild dears dream of American forest and hunters dream of American wild dear. My mind is set on leaving America, but wherever I go, I'm beset by extreme Americana.

Florida beaches and Texas hoodlums, west coast hippies and east coast hipsters, Mid-land simple folks and Salt Lake religious, Georgia blackness and New Mexico Mexicans, down south Cajun. Cars, big cars, SUVs, Hummers, Pick-up trucks, convertibles, Gm, Ford, Oldsmobile, second hand, this years model, black, white, grey, red, cars. Toaster ovens, Chinese dry cleaners, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, all kinds of home appliances.

America is comfort, America is waste, America is beautiful, America is evil, America is Free, America is imperial, America is yours, America is closed, America is a dream of sweat and blood mixed with prairie land and mountains. America is the cold white beaches of Alaska, America is the vast empty Arizona desert, America is the endless drive on highway 66, America is the mountains of northern Oregon, America is the salmon rivers of Maine, America is the bustling nightlife of New-York city, America is the casinos of Atlantic city, America is the Dallas suburbs, the Chicago buildings, the Hollywood stars, Detroit techno and Indianapolis, Louisiana.

America is a fat man in a drive-thru, the great lakes, the plantation houses, the coal mines of Virginia, the Pittsburgh steel mills, the New-York Yankees, Micheal Jordan, the anti-establishment and the establishment. America is unavoidable, it is giant, it is there, it is in my head, it is in your head, it is everywhere, it is the world.

I have been going through old stuf

I followed you in the shade you were meant to play I remember when you came all night  settled on the door little bit of top of wine  and I drove away  and yesterday Ill stay your friend no matter you are older now  and stay awake  your parents arent at home now  take a shot of rum  Nowadays, wish I could come back to you but I drove away  so this is standard now  sat to play  I loved you and it feels the same  Today is the day today everything for you everyday coming for every actor and so and so today is the day today is the day everyday everyday go at home and we'd talk about so and so  today is the day today is the day everyday  I remember When I met you, you were young We had good times and it was fun and now that your of age We might just kiss Do it on your parents bed  Just like the kids  I went to bed you thought of me The summer time  today is the day